"You've no special information?" she asked, laughing. "It would make me so important!"

"Oh, you're important enough already—after this morning. And I know nothing—absolutely nothing."

"You mean to say Miss Driver doesn't tell you——?"

"Actually she does not—and I'm not sure I should know if she did."

"Of course I'm only chaffing. But it would be rather—ideal."

"H'm. Forty-three may not be senile, but would you call it ideal? For a romance?"

"Who's talking of romances? I'm on the question of marriage, Mr. Austin."

"But if one can afford a romance? What's the use of being rich?"

"No, no, it's the poor people who can go in for romance. They've nothing to lose! Divide nothing a year between two—or, presently, four—and still it's no less."

"But the rich have nothing to gain—except romance."